First Ops

Hi! Boy did we get a big storm today. Today is my first day doing "ops" (that means operating the Doppler on Wheels). We set up the radar in the middle of a field and have been operating all night long. Just a bit ago a big thunderstorm developed and it went right over our truck!

The picture above is what the storm looks like to the radar. This radar image is like a map of the storm's location. In the image, blue is clear sky. The cloud is in shades of pink, yellow, and red, and the black parts show where it is raining. The Doppler on Wheels (DOW) truck that we were in is the little black rectangle in the middle. The storm was blowing from North-West to South-East. North is up and East is right in the image, so this is just minutes before we got slammed with rain. There were big raindrops and even a bit of lightning for about 1/2 an hour, then the storm moved past us, the clear air that was behind the storm moved over us, and the rain stopped. That was a nice storm for my first time in the DOW. I can't wait to see what other storms we get to measure.

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